By L.E. McCULLOUGH
When singer Lilly Abreu and filmmaker Andrés Tapia-Urzua began contemplating how to devise a transformative multimedia music-and-film event, two core elements dominated the discussion from start to finish.
“We wanted to create a unique concert experience in an intimate space,” says Abreu.
“And with that, we wanted to create a dialogue of difference,” says Tapia-Urzua.
Both are certain to be on display Sunday, April 12, 2026, when Borealis: A Constellation of Classical & New Music in Concert debuts at 7:30 p.m. at Frick Pittsburgh Museum & Gardens. An eight-minute world premiere piece by acclaimed Chilean composer Boris Alvarado highlights an eclectic music program spanning continents and centuries.
(Image credits: Lilly Abreu by Andrés Tapia-Urzua, Cello Fury by Tom Furey)
Abreu and Tapia-Urzua will be joined by Pittsburgh Cello Quartet, Cello Fury and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra pianist Rodrigo Ojeda and cellist Yun-Ya Lo. Composer Flávio Chamis, a Latin Grammy nominee and former assistant conductor for Leonard Bernstein, will conduct the various ensembles.
If you’re keeping track of the musical chairs, that’s a total of one piano, one vocalist, eight cellos.
“When we had the idea of producing this concert,” says Abreu, “one of the pieces that came to my mind was “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5” by the composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. It blends J.S. Bach’s rich Baroque style with the folk and popular music of Brazil, and was written for soprano and eight cellos. It is one of my passions.”
The evening showcases Abreu’s classically-trained soprano, honed over an extensive touring and recording career embracing pop, Broadway, opera, jazz and music of her native Brazil, from lambada and samba to bossa nova and choro.
Her Borealis selections explore deeper shades of the soprano palette, and include “L’Invitation Au Voyage by French Romantic” composer Henri Duparc, Antonín Dvořák’s “Song to the Moon from Rusalka,” Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s “Canción al Árbol del Olvido” and “Melodia Sentimental” from “Songs of the Tropical Forest,” written by Villa-Lobos for the 1959 Hollywood film Green Mansions, starring Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins.
For cello devotees, Cello Fury presents “Nocturnal,” a new composition by member Simon Cummings, and Pittsburgh Cello Quartet takes center stage with Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D, K. 448, 1st Movement” and “Por Una Cabeza” by early 1900s tango master Carlos Gardel.
Baroque and proto-punk come together when Abreu and Cello Fury fuse 17th-century harpsichord virtuoso Francois Couperin’s “Incipit Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae” with Lou Reed’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” released in 1966 as Velvet Underground’s debut single.
“We wanted a spot where the musicians could be creative beyond their standard performing roles,” says Tapia-Urzua, “Adapting Lou Reed to classical interpretation gives a strongly different flavor because it’s unexpected.”
Tapia-Urzua is the former chair of digital filmmaking and video production at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. He has been making films since the 1980s, specializing in immersive and interactive formats with themes examining political issues and how modern identity is shaped by culture and technology.
During the concert’s vocal numbers, a mosaic of his original video images will be projected in tandem with the musical accompaniment and Abreu’s singing. The approach, says Tapia-Urzua, is a visual interpretation of the music and sometimes the lyrics of the songs.”
“I treat visuals as music,” he says. “I’ve always thought that visual has a rhythm, has a space. Finding where the music and the visuals have a common rhythm and space, you try to work with it.”
and Pittsburgh Cello Quartet.
(Image credits: Rodrigo Ojeda by Donna Pavlis, Quartet by Edward DeArmitt)
That commonality culminates with the final piece, Borealis, described as an “Audiovisual Ballet for Female Voice, Bowls and Eight Cellos”.
In 2023, the composer Alvarado asked Tapia-Urzua to supply lyrics for a new and unnamed musical work. Tapia-Urzua wrote a 13-line poem titled Borealis that Alvarado integrated into the music and then affixed as the title of the piece.
“Borealis refers to the Aurora Borealis,” says Tapia-Urzua, “the Northern Lights phenomenon that appears when energetic particles from the Sun interact with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere. For both Boris and me, that is very abstract and open for interpretation.”
It has also required concentrated interpretation by Abreu, who opens the piece with two-and-a-half minutes of improvised movement and a cappella vocalization.
“The dance part was written there with the understanding that I’m going to bring my own interpretation of what’s written,” she says. “I love that, to have the flexibility to bring my own emotions to his ideas. Boris brings the idea and says, ‘OK, this is yours. You want to use that? You can. You want to modify? You can.’ And that is exactly what I will be doing at the moment the first note is in the air.”
For the audience, Abreu and Tapia-Urzua hope the concert represents more than just a novel musical experiment. “We want people to feel excited by the richness of this diverse mix of music and story, the richness of diversity itself,” says Abreu. “And how valuable that diversity of voice and perspective is to the art that enriches our lives every day.”
Tapia-Urzua concurs. “So much of the way we consume the arts is in separate niches,” he notes. “We perform, exhibit, speak to the same audience, the converted audience. There’s never a genuine dialogue of difference. What Borealis offers people is a wider understanding of the world with the music here in their home town.”
L.E. McCullough is a Pittsburgh-based publicist, fundraiser, arts administrator, musician, writer and arts journalist whose play, Freedom House: Giving Life a Second Chance, recently premiered at Prime Stage Theater. Learn more https://lemccullough.wordpress.com/.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Borealis: A Constellation of Classical & New Music in Concert, with post-show reception by Mercearia Brasil Market, debuts Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 7:30 p.m., at Frick Pittsburgh Museum & Gardens, 7227 Reynolds St., Pittsburgh. Tickets: $35 member, $45 adult, $45 senior (65+), $25 youth (3-17) and college students with ID.https://www.thefrickpittsburgh.org/Event-Borealis-A-Constellation-of-Classical-and-New-Music-in-Concert.
Categories: Arts and Ideas
Leave a Reply Cancel reply